National News

Family with epileptic son touched after stranger pays for dinner, sends kind note

A North Carolina family with an epileptic child was given a touching gift on Friday when an anonymous stranger paid for their dinner at a restaurant, leaving them a note that is, not surprisingly, going viral online.

The note read: "God only gives special children to special people."

The message was delivered to Ashley England and her family, including her 8-year-old son, Riley, at the Stag-N-Doe pizza restaurant in China Grove, N.C., on Friday by a waitress.

"I'll try to do this without crying," the waitress told the family, according to WBTV.com. "But another customer has paid for your bill tonight and wanted me to give you this note."

England said Riley, who is nonverbal, gets frustrated because he can't speak, and he had been especially rowdy during the meal.

"He threw the phone and started screaming," England told WBTV. "The past few weeks have been very hard and trying for us, especially with public outings. Riley was getting loud and hitting the table, and I know it was aggravating to some people."

Riley's seizures started when he was 18 months old, England said.

She said the mystery diner's random act of kindness brought her to tears.

"To have someone do that small act towards us shows that some people absolutely understand what we are going through and how hard it is to face the public sometimes," she said. "They made me cry, blessed me more than they know. I felt like out of all the rude negative comments that we are faced with, these outweighs them. The people who care. Little did he know what struggles we had been facing lately, and this was surely needed at that moment."

England posted the note on Facebook with a message of her own: "Dear stranger, thank you for giving me a blessing tonight in a way you will never know."